


It Takes The Pain From Me (And Then I Am In Love)

by translorastyrell (nerddowell)



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Anaesthetic Makes Renly Loopy, Canon Era, Fix-It of Sorts, Flirting, Flirting Whilst High, Injury Recovery, M/M, Renly Doesn't Die, Romance, Serious Injuries, cuteness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-03
Updated: 2018-08-03
Packaged: 2019-06-21 01:56:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,710
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15547068
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nerddowell/pseuds/translorastyrell
Summary: ‘Did the maesters send you?’‘They didn’t so much send me as finally let me back in,’ Loras tells him, shrugging. ‘I was… concerned.’ He adjusts the furs over Renly’s chest. ‘How are you feeling?’AU where Bitterbridge ends in a battle, not a murder-by-ghost. Renly is wounded in the battle, and receives a concussion and a lot of milk of the poppy for the pain. Naturally, he responds to this by being totally out of it whilst hitting on his boyfriend-slash-nursemaid.





	It Takes The Pain From Me (And Then I Am In Love)

**Author's Note:**

> If you haven't seen it before, the video this fic is based on is right [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IqebEymqFS8).
> 
> Title from the Florence and the Machine song _Pure Feeling_ , because _Hospital Beds_ didn't have any good ones.

The skin of the peach is soft and lightly furred in Loras’ hand as he smooths his thumb obsessively over it. There’s a bushel of the fruit on the end table beside the king’s bed, brought up from Highgarden to Bitterbridge during their progress, before Stannis met them outside Storm’s End and brother faced brother in battle. Despite having all the power of Highgarden and the Reach behind him and Loras, bloodied and brutal, at his side, Renly had been dragged from his horse and almost killed during the battle; only Brienne’s backswing denting his assailant’s helmet enough to daze and send him reeling had saved the king’s life. Loras would be more bitter about the fact that it was Brienne, again, who’d bested him if he wasn’t so terrified for Renly.

The king had been brought back to the tent on the back of Loras’ horse, unconscious, white-faced and bleeding copiously from a wound at the neck and multiple rents in his armour. The maesters had taken one look at him and sent everyone out of the tent, even Loras, who – he was ashamed to say – had threatened to slay them all where they stood if they attempted to keep him from Renly when the king could be dying. He had, after all, sworn his life in service of Renly’s. It’s only Margaery insisting that Loras would be able to do nothing to help and would only get in their way that persuades him to leave. His sister sits with him as the maesters do their work, stroking his hair and leaning his head on her shoulder, unconcerned for the blood oozing from a wound on his temple and staining the silk of her dress.

The maesters allow him back into the tent after several hours that have probably shaved several  _decades_  off Loras’ life, and he immediately retakes his place beside the king’s bed, his eyes sharp as he scrutinises every rise and fall of Renly’s chest, daring it to do anything differently. He suddenly understands exactly how Renly must have felt during the Hand’s tourney when the Mountain had dragged Loras from his own horse and threatened his life. Loras’ heart still hasn’t recovered from this near miss, and he doubts Renly’s had for several hours after the incident either.

Loras studies Renly’s face, calm and open in sleep the way it rarely is in wakefulness. Even when they are together in private, when there’s no expectations for Renly to be charming and kingly and anything but perfect, there is a guardedness to his expression, something tensed like a knotted thread that never smooths out. But now, his face is relaxed, his body heavy and boneless where he lies on the furs, and he looks younger than ever. Still half a boy.

By now the colour is returning to his face and his wounds have been cleaned and bandaged, although there’s a nasty scrape at his hairline where his helm had been knocked off and a large bruise has formed. It was this that had so concerned the maesters when the wound at his neck was shown to be mostly superficial; many a man had received such a knock on the head during a joust and been upright enough for the celebrations afterward only to be unable to be woken the next morning. Loras smooths the king’s hair off his brow, threading his fingers through the silky strands, cleaned of blood and sweat by diligent hands. Renly has spent the last couple of days drooling into his pillow, having been awake only long enough to be given more milk of the poppy for his pain before drifting off again.

‘You’ll want to be with him when he wakes, I dare say, m’lord,’ the maester had told Loras. He was a young, nervous thing who seemed to only just have left the citadel, and he couldn’t say a word to the young knight without shaking like a leaf. (Although, Loras had to admit, if he hadn’t been threatened with a beheading from an enraged and panicked Loras whilst trying to treat Renly’s wounds, he might have been a little braver.) ‘He’ll be disoriented from the medicine, and it’ll help to see a familiar face. It might take a while for him to come back to himself.’

A soft groan sounding from the bed beside him drags Loras out of his fierce concentration on Renly’s breathing to look at his face. The king’s eyes crack open, struggling to focus on the roof of the tent as he frowns, his brow quickly knotting as he murmurs something unintelligible. Loras drops the peach and quickly reaches up to rub his thumb over the crease in Renly’s brow, trying to give him what little comfort he possibly can. Renly’s head lolls on the pillow, trying to look towards him, before his eyes eventually find Loras’ and focus slowly and blearily on his face.

Loras picks up another peach from the bowl.

‘Eat,’ he tells him, although what he really wants to do is either kiss Renly stupid in gratification that he’s still alive, or kill him for putting Loras through such stress. Possibly both at once. ‘The maesters told me I’ve got to get some food in you.’

Renly nods, reaching up sluggishly to take it, only to find his arms suddenly enormously heavy and uncooperative. He makes a plaintive noise, and Loras rolls his eyes. He pulls a knife from his pocket to cut the peach into slices, juice sticky where it trickles down his wrist. He winkles the stone out with his teeth, spitting it onto the floor, and holds out the first piece between forefinger and thumb. Renly opens his mouth like a baby bird, and Loras feeds him the whole fruit carefully, piece by piece, licking the juice from his fingers in between Renly’s every mouthful.

The king’s eyes don’t leave Loras’ face once throughout.

Loras smiles softly at him as he cleans his fingers, sucking his thumb to rid it of the uncomfortable stickiness. ‘Better?’ he asks, and dries his hands on his tunic.

Renly doesn’t seem to have heard. Instead, his brow creases into another frown as he stares hard at Loras as though trying to place his face.

‘Did the maesters send you?’

‘They didn’t so much send me as finally let me back in,’ Loras tells him, shrugging. ‘I was… concerned.’ He adjusts the furs over Renly’s chest. ‘How are you feeling?’

‘Strange,’ Renly mumbles, his voice thick and slurred. He gave his head a slow shake before closing his eyes in pain with a soft groan. ‘My head…’

‘Yes, you took quite the knock to it,’ Loras tells him. He doesn’t tell Renly that he killed the knight who did it without a second thought. The second Brienne had moved away, he struck the man – some hedge knight sworn to one of the minor houses around Dragonstone – hard enough to cleave him in two from shoulder to groin, and would’ve continued until there was nothing left of him but ribbons if Ser Emmon Cuy hadn’t stayed his hand.

Renly frowns for another moment before his face clears and he looks up at Loras. The usually clear blue eyes are foggy and still a little crossed as he tries to focus, but his face softens into something like amazement as he gazes at Loras.

‘You’re beautiful,’ he says, a dazed smile on his lips. Loras snorts.

‘And  _you_  are on so much milk of the poppy, you don’t know what you’re saying.’

‘You must be the most beautiful creature in the whole of the Seven Kingdoms,’ Renly presses, voice getting clearer and more like himself with every word despite how lazy and sleepy it is. Loras, who has heard these things many times before from myriad other people, nevertheless still feels a blush rise to his cheeks to hear them from  _Renly_.

‘Shush,’ he whispers, shaking his head. Renly, always so deeply guarded and private, saying these things to him feels wrong, as if he’s witness to something he shouldn’t be. Both of them have always had to keep any such openly admiring comments to themselves, or at least to behind firmly closed doors, lest anyone learn the truth about their relationship. He feels the urge to get up and leave, to give Renly a little privacy until he can regain his wits; he forces himself to remain seated by the bed, but, trying to cover his flattered awkwardness, he teases Renly instead: ‘Be quiet. Gods know I’ve enjoyed the rest from your constant chattering thus far. Your sigil should be a jackdaw, not a stag.’

Renly’s face falls.

‘I’m sorry,’ he mumbles, and Loras is poleaxed. Of course his jest had been taken the wrong way; Renly whilst sober was more than used to a little banter between them, constantly trading playful barbs and making fools of themselves and one another, but he wasn’t currently sober. Making one of his usual teasing comments now would be taken entirely seriously, and the last thing Loras wanted to do when Renly was already hurt and in this state was to upset him further.

‘No, forgive me,’ Loras says quickly, reaching out for Renly’s hand and squeezing it gently. ‘It was only a jest.’ He strokes Renly’s hair again soothingly, wishing he had his eldest brother’s natural talent for smoothing ruffled feathers and playing nursemaid. (He remembers once a bout of fever as a child which had kept him confined to his bed for three days. He’d raged and screamed, demanding to be let out and insisting that he was fine, not calming down in the least. Eventually, when their mother and father reached the end of their tether, they had sent in Willas, who had sat by his bed and read him stories from the books of chivalry in his father’s library until he fell asleep.) ‘I simply meant you shouldn’t speak too much.’

‘Why not?’

Loras gives in. ‘I don’t want you to say anything you don’t mean, or that you don’t want to be heard.’

Renly fixes him with earnest blue eyes. ‘I swear to you, I mean every word I have said so far. You are the most…’ He frowns, lifting heavy arms to gesture searchingly as though trying to pull the word from the air, ‘the most… the most  _dazzling_  thing I have ever seen. All the gods old and new could not compare.’

‘You’re a secret poet.’ Loras smiles, surprised by Renly’s eloquence. His lover has always had a way with words and all the easy charm his brother Stannis lacks, but to hear him be so frank with his praises is rare. Renly’s guards are entirely lowered, and it’s the first time Loras has ever seen Renly so uninhibited. The king is staring at him with such open adoration in his eyes that Loras feels pinned by the intensity of it; Renly’s gaze is bright and blue and sparkling with so much naked affection that it warms him down to his bones.

‘Who are you?’ Renly asks, curiosity now entering his voice. ‘I feel sure I must have seen you before, but I can’t imagine forgetting such a face.’

Loras feels equally sure that his face has bypassed pink to a deep Lannister crimson by now, but he answers nonetheless.

‘We have met,’ he says softly. ‘My name is Loras, of House Tyrell.’

‘ _Loras_ ,’ Renly mumbles, reverent, and Loras squashes the spark of lust that flares through him at the tone of Renly’s voice. He repeats Loras’ name now in the exact same slow, loving voice that he uses when Loras is pleasuring him, and Loras fights back the images in his mind of exactly that occurrence. ‘Do we know each other?’

The question makes him pause. How should he define exactly what he and Renly are to one another, to a Renly who doesn’t entirely recognise him under the influence of milk of the poppy? After a little thought – whilst Renly gazes expectantly at him with those wide, soft blue eyes – he settles on the easiest.

‘We do. Quite well, in fact.’ He smiles. ‘I was your squire.’

‘My squire?’

‘Yes. When I was ten, my father sent me to you to squire. I admit, I didn’t like it much at first – the Stormlands are very different from the Reach – but we soon became friends, and after that, it was more bearable. Then…’ He trails off, unsure of whether to continue. At fourteen, no longer a boy but a man grown, Loras had caught Renly looking at him with the exact same dazed, adoring look in his eyes as he was now, and – feeling bolder than perhaps he ought – he’d kissed his lord on the lips as he attended him in the bath, and Renly had caught him by the hair to do it again and again until neither of them could breathe and Loras’ head was spinning, drunk on Renly’s kisses and thrumming with arousal.

‘Then what?’

‘Then… when I was fourteen, we became lovers.’

The effect on Renly is instantaneous; his eyes widen in disbelief and his mouth drops open, voice hoarse as he gasps, ‘We’re  _lovers_?’

‘Yes…’ Loras says slowly, wary now. Renly stares at him in evident shock before a massive smile breaks out across his face, his eyes bright.

‘We’re  _lovers_. You’re my – you’re  _mine_.’ His hand comes up to tangle in Loras’ hair, twining the slack brown curls around his fingers as though it were made of gold. Even thick-tongued and still half-asleep, Renly sounds ridiculously grateful, and Loras feels honest-to-gods butterflies swarming in his stomach. He’s never felt like this before, like he’s being almost worshipped by his lover; it’s a giddy feeling that makes his head light and his heart full, and he beams down at Renly as the king smiles up at him.

‘How did  _that_  happen?’

‘Mostly you just looked at me exactly like you’re doing now from across the room when you thought I wasn’t looking.’

Renly smiles sleepily, nodding his head. ‘I’m so lucky,’ he mumbles, still starry-eyed, and Loras groans playfully. Renly grins and sweeps his eyes over Loras from head to toe, his expression going from adoring to roguish as his eyes glitter. ‘Would you mind turning around?’

Loras laughs, rolling his eyes and pinching the king’s shoulder gently in playful admonition before giving Renly what he wants. He stands up and does a slow twirl, making sure to move just so to highlight the strength in his slim frame (and show off his arse to the maximum effect). Renly makes an approving sort of purring noise behind him, making Loras snort again before he sits back down.

‘Seen something you like?’ he teases, and Renly nods.

‘Very much.’ He smirks at Loras. ‘If we’re lovers, have we kissed yet?’

‘Once or twice,’ Loras says, more than willing to play this game. Renly’s eyes glitter mischievously as he fixes Loras with a speculative look.

‘Where?’

‘Well,’ Loras says, deliberately pitching his voice low and throaty, ‘I’ve kissed you here,’ he brushes his finger over Renly’s forehead, light as a feather, ‘and here–’ over his lips, ‘here,’ over the spot just above his collarbone that always drives Renly wild when Loras sucks and worries at the skin with his teeth, ‘here, and here,’ he touches the king’s chest, trailing down to his stomach, and then, grinning wolfishly, ‘and a little lower than that.’

Renly laughs, delighted, and yawns as the milk of the poppy starts to drag him back under. He fumbles sleepily for Loras’ hand, his expression once again earnest, though the energy that has kept him awake until now is visibly ebbing rapidly.

‘Don’t leave me,’ he mumbles to Loras, and Loras smiles, shaking his head.

‘I won’t.’ He takes the king’s hand and presses a kiss to each of his knuckles, Renly’s eyelids drooping more and more with each one before they fall closed entirely and his face relaxes almost instantaneously into sleep. Loras tucks the furs more securely around the king’s prone form and continues to hold his hand, rubbing his thumb over the back of Renly’s palm, as Renly sleeps off the effects of the medicine, lost to his dreams.


End file.
